ABSTRACT
Tolstoy was the most puzzling and the most conspicuous literary figure in Europe during the last two decades of the nineteenth and the first decade of the twentieth century. The universal interest in his writings may have suffered an eclipse of late, but this does not diminish their value. Whatever one may think of Tolstoy the moralist and thinker, Tolstoy the artist will always be looked upon as one of the giants of world literature. Tolstoy's first work, Childhood (1852), reveals his power of making the simplest everyday happenings significant and alive. No matter how small the trifle, he identifies himself with it and imbues it with his own vitality. He also combines an unrivaled observation with an uncanny psychological intuition. One could quote a number of illustrations from his works, especially from War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Anna Karenina which in several respects anticipates the Tolstoy of My Confession and of the moralizing pamphlets he wrote after 1880.
